Everyday Enlightenment, page 24
In the following tantric practice, you learn the essence of tantric yoga by using your attention to create a bridge of awareness between your genitals, heart, and whole body. This act of conscious remembrance not only enhances and enriches, deepens and dimensionalizes, the pleasure of sexual embrace; it also transfigures human sexuality into an act of communion and worship. You not only hold your lover in your arms; you embrace the Divine.
Practice the heart of tantra yoga in your sexual relationship as follows:
The next time you make love (or masturbate, if you currently have no partner), rather than focusing attention exclusively on genital pleasure, place equal attention on your heart, your genitals, and your whole body.
We all have the capacity to do this simple act, but our attention must be free to do so. Consciousness of self is blocked by self-consciousness. You cannot attend fully to integrating genitals, heart, and whole body while you are paying attention to pictures in your mind or wondering how you are doing, how you look, what your partner thinks of you, and so forth. In order to be mindful, you first need to be mindless. Embracing your sexuality both requires and develops the ability to lose your mind and come to your senses.
Embracing this tantric practice of connecting genitals and heart during sexual intimacy serves as one important facet of everyday enlightenment. In order to integrate this practice even occasionally into your life, you need to engage your will. Will and feeling-attention (or attention with an emotional, even devotional aspect) serves to awaken your heart, the eleventh gateway waiting just ahead.
Sex, Love, and Will
If you or your partner are rarely in the mood for making love, or if you lack energy to do so, there is something in the way of intimacy—something out of sorts or out of balance that you need to air out and explore together in the spirit of love and understanding. But before you get caught up in endless psychological discussions and analyses ( a process that might end up reinforcing the very relationship problem you are working on), perhaps what you need to do is commit yourselves—will yourselves—to make love a little more often even if one or both of you aren't in the mood.
In the Orthodox Jewish tradition, Friday evening, the beginning of Shabbat (Sabbath), is the occasion where a man is expected to give sexual pleasure to his wife. If there are problems in the way of this, they are to be worked through. Although this tradition may seem to lack spontaneity, there may be great and practical wisdom in it, where loving partners come together at the end of the work week to celebrate their intimacy and their loving bond. Contrast this with having sex only when you happen to feel like it.
Normally you think of applying your will in order to not engage in sexual activity—not act on desire, but instead practice self-control, self-restraint, abstinence, or celibacy. But you can also apply your will as a tantric practice in order to engage fully in sexual activity even when you don't happen to be in the mood. Sexual intimacy takes many forms and represents many states, from lust to reassurance to comfort to communion. Sexual intimacy is also a way of making love, of creating love, of restimulating and acting out mutual caring.
Sometimes you feel tired or a little irritated about something your partner said or did, so you turn away physically. Whether your partner's reasons are ideal, if he or she turns to you needing love, affection, or simply physical satisfaction, instead of rejecting your partner, you can apply your will and turn to your partner with kindness, compassion, and understanding, remembering why you first joined together. This loving touch may or may not lead to intercourse, but it can heal an emotional rift and offer needed reassurances of love and caring. Many of us may report that we have on many occasions made love when we weren't really in the mood but because our partner expected or wanted it. But how often have we done so as an act of both heart and will, giving, healing, surrendering in service and devotion to Spirit in the form of our partner?
Love may lead to sexual intimacy, but sexual intimacy may also stir the embers of love. So even though you may not feel like sexual engagement in the moment your partner does, in responding to him or her, you discover why it is called making love. Sometimes we need to make love not with the idea of getting our share of pleasure, but as a form of healing we offer to our partner. This is a spiritual act of tantra and of service.
Argue when you need to. But always make up, and touch one another, and embrace, in whatever form that takes, even if you need to apply your will to do so at times, to create a more perfect union. Soul mates aren't found; they are made.
Love, Desire, and Sexual Communion
There are times you eat when you are not hungry. If a loved one has made you something special, you may eat it as an act of kindness even though you don't have much appetite. (You may or may not end up enjoying the food, but the kindness remains.
There are times when you engage in sexual activity when you do not desire it. If a loved one wants to have sex, you may make love as an act of kindness even though you don't have much appetite. (You may or may not end up enjoying the sex, but the kindness remains.)
In everyday life it is better to eat when you are hungry and better to engage in sexuality (leading to orgasm) when you feel desire. Natural hunger expresses your body's need for calories and nutrients. Similarly, natural desire (for orgasm) expresses your body's need for sexual release. But embracing sexuality also involves surrendering this activity to the dominion of your higher self.
Some sexual moments center solely around one's own pleasure; other sexual moments center solely around another's pleasure. As most of us have experienced, the best sex combines an interplay of both, a dance of self and other until separate selves merge. The giving is receiving, and the receiving is giving, so that at some point in your union it becomes less important, even irrelevant, who is giving or receiving. This circle of energy is created when two people make love, exchanging gifts of touch, sensitivity, and caring. In the end, what more can one give?
Tantric Practices of Love in Everyday Life
It's one thing to read about the benefits of enjoying life and feeling pleasure, and to talk about the importance of loving yourself, but can you give yourself permission to do so? The following exercise involves taking yourself out for a night on the town. Take an entire day, or as much time as you are willing to give, to enjoy your own company and do what you enjoy (even if you normally do it with someone else)
Solo Tantra
• Go to a movie. Or shopping. Or a fair or other event.
• Treat yourself, as you would a good friend or lover, to a lavish lunch or dinner.
• Satisfy every feasible desire on this date.
• End the day with an intimate evening of solo sexual bliss.
• If you have a partner who is interested in engaging in this exercise, you might suggest that he or she go on the same solo date
• The following week, if you are in a relationship, go on a nearly identical date with your partner and lavish the same attention on him or her (whether or not you are sexually active together, as appropriate)
Tantra for Two
If you are sexually active, try this simple yet powerful tantric exercise. If you have children, you will want to do this after bedtime or, better still, on an overnight vacation
• Shower together, then do fifteen minutes of yoga or stretching and breathing.
• Meditate together (preferably by candlelight) for ten minutes. Put on soft music you both enjoy.
• Embrace and touch for at least ten minutes before inter-
course, while caressing each other's arms, legs, back, face, and feet—a loving massage.
• During intercourse by candlelight, be still for at least five minutes and simply gaze deeply into each other's eyes. Consider your love for your partner.
• Acknowledge to yourself and let go of any levels of self-consciousness that may arise, and surrender with love into your partner's eyes. Feel and release whatever comes up, and return to love.
• Feel the mystery behind your partner's eyes.
• At some point, if you do this, you may see and feel your partner as a divine being and experience the profound love you feel, both personal and transpersonal, that often goes unnoticed in the stress of day-to-day living.
• Notice if key issues or insights arise in this exercise, and share them verbally afterward.
You can learn much about your present priorities, your relationship to pleasure, your self-worth, and your intimacy comfort level if you do not do these exercises and then ask yourself, deeply and respectfully, why not?
Final Words
Given the emotionally and morally charged nature of sexuality, you may have felt offended if my words trod on your beliefs. If so, and you continued to read this far, I congratulate you and honor your beliefs and values. I deeply believe that each of us needs to find our own way, our own religion, and our own sexuality. In the realm of sexuality, as in politics, religion, and ice-cream flavors, what is ultimately best is a matter for each individual to decide on his or her own. In the meantime, explore the reality of how you actually live, honor your ongoing process, and learn the lessons of experience
As you leave this gateway, remember its title: Embrace Your Sexuality. Honor who you are, a unique expression in the world. Continue your journey with a lightened heart, trusting that your thoughts and fantasies are part of what makes you unique. And remember that at its highest human expression, sexuality becomes a practice of everyday enlightenment.
Look back now through the ten gateways through which you have passed and the broader view you have earned from where you now stand. Having explored the challenges and wonders of making love with your partner and your world, you are ready to explore the depths of your heart.
THE ELEVENTH GATEWAY
Awaken Your Heart
Love is life's great secret.
It transcends fear and isolation, guiding you beyond the shallows of sentiment, to the shores of boundless being.
Love endures not from words or feelings alone, but from actions that carry you beyond the interests of separate self, beyond reason or motive, to embrace all people, things, and circumstances.
Loving-kindness begins in little ways, in moments of insight and humility, in your soul's longing for love's communion, which waits just on the other side of your heart's doorway.
You are not here to contact your higher self; you are here to become it.
The Healing Power of Love
Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new.
—Ursula K. LeGuin
Road Map: Preview of Coming Attractions
our spiritual evolution has an element of mystery in that it occurs from a blend of effort, time, and grace. Still, this much is clear: To fulfill the promise of your human potential, your heart must awaken. But what does it mean to awaken your heart? If love is found naturally at the heart, what will you find at the heart of love? What is love's essence and source—God? Spirit? Mystery? A figment of imagination? A bit of cerebral chemistry? Brian Swimme, heartful cosmologist, has proposed that love is gravity—the universal force of attraction that every single body in the universe has for every other body, the unifying glue that holds the cosmos together and draws us all inexorably back to the Source of all being.
This poet's picture, this transcendent vision of love, is a good place to begin, because without this larger view we are fooled by love's pretenders—seduced by soap-opera sentiment and romantic desire, bedazzled by fading roses and fickle phantoms of lust or infatuation.
Awakening your heart entails moving from conditional feelings to unconditional kindness—awakening the healing powers of the heart that can lift you beyond yourself to love without fear, limit, or reason.
In this gateway we explore new ways of understanding love and living it. To the degree you have understood the principles of the first ten gateways—including reclaiming your will, taming your mind, accepting your emotions, facing your fears, and embracing your sexuality—you have prepared yourself for the great leap into the heart, the place where flesh and spirit meet. The mythic Lover's Leap is a leap not downward, but upward, into a heightened experience of life. As songwriter David Roth reminds us, “We're not falling at all, we are rising in love.”
To the degree you have embodied the lessons of the gateways leading to the heart, you are now prepared to embody a new way of loving, founded upon enduring behavior rather than changeable feelings. You have cultivated the garden of your psyche, preparing the soil and sowing the seeds so that love can blossom naturally. No one can teach love or learn it, for the mind has no heart and the heart has no reason. All I can offer here is a love note to you, my readers and friends, sharing what I have found to be true at the heart of life. I am no saint, except as you are in moments of loving, but caring compels me to share ways to bring love into the world as a midwife welcomes a newborn.
When we speak of love, it may manifest as romantic love or as love for a child, a brother, sister, parent, friend, for humanity, for God. Ultimately, the highest wisdom of the ages tells us to love, serve, and remember God in, as, and through everyone and everything. Love unconditionally with all your heart—this is all you ever need to learn, to do, to become—in this gateway, in this book, in this life. Whatever the question, love is the answer. But loving, as your life has revealed, is not so simple. Countless poets, philosophers, psychologists, and romantics have rhapsodized, discussed, eulogized, and analyzed love. But until our hearts awaken, love remains a word, a puzzle, a desirable goal rather than a living reality. Bill Moyers once observed, “Even the Bible is a closed book unless we approach it with an open heart.”
How do we awaken our hearts? How indeed. Welcome to the eleventh gateway. The summit is in sight.
In this gateway we'll consider why it takes courage to love in this world as well as examine how and when love blossoms naturally; and, based upon what you have already learned, we will explore ways of keeping love alive—the keys to long-term loving relationships. The heart of this chapter involves how to apply your will to create a new way of loving that transcends how loving you feel; includes methods to awaken your heart and bring more love into the world; and, finally, as our hearts awaken, a preview of coming society. shifts in global consciousness that will affect every facet of society.
Love as Courage
This is the bittersweet truth of human life: The path to love i strewn not only with rose petals, but with thorns. By journey'send you will lose everyone and everything you have ever loved; that is why it takes courage to love anyone in this world. You will seek love in safety until you discover there is no safety in love, and none needed. Only when you are willing to risk the pain and sorrow of loss will you trust enough to open your heart to joy.
Some of us believe we want a soul mate, an intimate relationship, yet another part of us wants to remain safe in the citadel of isolation. Loners can remain detached and dissociated, hitchhiking through relationships and then walking away at the first sign of trouble. It takes courage to persist through the rocky roads of relationship; it takes courage to have and to love children. We suffer every one of our loved ones' illnesses, injuries, and disappointments. We lose sleep over our children's dilemmas and know their pain.
It is far safer never to love, for your heart is a sleeping giant filled with passion and pain, joy and fear. It is safer to remain within the armor of solitude, like a turtle in its shell. The only price you pay is your humanity.
No matter how successful, powerful, or wealthy one may be, life without love is a realm of shadow. When psychologists began to study violent criminals, they found that almost without exception, none of these offenders had experienced parental love or ever had a pet to take care of as a child. Without love we wither like a flower without water. Whether or not you are married, whether you live with others or live alone, you need someone to love in your life in order to fulfill the promise of the eleventh gateway. Whether that someone is your spouse, friend, children, parents, pets, or others, they serve as a means of awakening your heart.
Looking into Your Heart—A Self-Assessment
Reflect upon the following questions to shed light on the practice of love in your life
• If you had to choose, would you rather love or be loved?
• Think of five people you have loved in your life. Rank these five people in your degree of loving. If you have trouble doing this, why? If you do not have trouble doing this, why did you rank them as you did?
• Can you be angry with and love someone at the same time? Argue in favor of this, then against it.
• If there were no sex in the world, whom would you love, and how might you demonstrate that love?
• Does this gateway interest you more, or less, than the others? Why?
• When was the last time you said the words “I love you”? When was the last time you demonstrated your love through your actions?
• What would it be like if you loved everyone you met—the clerk at the market, the bus driver or bank teller, male or female, young or old?
• Is there a difference between love and kindness?
• What might you do today to bring more love into your world?
There are no right or wrong answers here. We are all humans-in-training, learning the art of loving. As in any of the gateways, self-reflection serves as a reality check to dissolve illusions, enhance awareness, expand self-knowledge, and turn deserts into gardens. The transformation begins with intending but needs courage, self-sacrifice, and patience to bloom. (The awakened heart may not be heaven, but you can see it from there.)
Awakening and Attention
In the ancient spiritual traditions of India and China, attention is said to rise through seven ascending levels of experience and awareness. In the lowest level of experience, attention is preoccupied with issues of survival, safety, and fear. In the second level, once survival issues are resolved, attention turns to relationship, pleasure, and sorrow. When attention rises to the third level of experience, it focuses on matters of power, self-control, and anger. The dramas of our daily lives, reflected in film and literature, center around these three levels of experience—survival (fear), relationship (sorrow), and power (anger). Only when these three arenas are resolved can your attention rise to the fourth level of human experience—love and service—and to the mystical realms beyond.
